Sam Etheridge, Chef/Owner
Ambrozia Café and Wine Bar
108 Rio Grande NW, 242.6560

PHOTO: WES NAMAN

BY DAMON SCOTT
Like the movie business, it seems restaurants in Albuquerque are booming—especially in recent years. Not fast food style restaurants, and I’m not talking about quantity here, but ones that are really adding to a building culinary scene in the city.

Ambrozia Café and Wine Bar is a bit of an oddity.  It’s an Old Town restaurant without a single traditional New Mexican dish on the menu. Chef and owner Sam Etheridge admits, being located in Old Town has its pros and cons.

“We have to be your destination. I don’t think a lot of locals are just coming down to Old Town,” Etheridge said.

Even so, the 150-year-old cozy dining room does see a lot of tourists due to its location. “That’s the pro,” says Etheridge. 

Local foodies will avoid the ever changing menu at their own peril, passing up lobster "corn dogs," and grilled elk tenderloin to name but two. Local iQ sat with Etheridge in Ambrozia’s intimate wine bar and found out the secret to a successful kitchen, how Etheridge worked at the Olive Garden as a teenager, and we even managed to get his Super Bowl pick.

 

IQ: Your menu is unlike anything available in Old Town.

SE: Oh yeah, definitely. We’re more upscale than the other restaurants in Old Town as well. 

IQ: What makes your menu distinct?

SE: Number one, we don’t have a New Mexican menu. We do all different types of cuisine — there’s a lot of Asian, a lot of Caribbean. It’s a wide variety. 

IQ: How do you describe the food on your menu?

SE: We call it contemporary global.

IQ: Where did you grow up?

SE: I grew up in Tennessee, and then I went to culinary school in Ft. Lauderdale (Florida).  After that I worked in restaurants in South Beach for five years. 

IQ: What was your culinary school experience like?

SE: It was awesome. As soon as I started culinary school, I loved it. Before that, I went to the University of Tennessee and got a degree in psychology, so that didn’t lead to much, but it does come in handy (laughs). I worked in a lot of the top restaurants as a line cook in Miami. It was a great experience learning that style of food, and the creativity part of it. I like to do a lot of Caribbean style food and Jamaican. 

IQ: Those aren’t styles of food that are readily available in Albuquerque.

SE: We try to definitely be different than any restaurant in town. We change our menu constantly. 

IQ: How does that work? Do you have a different special every day?

SE: No, we change the menu regularly. We don’t have a walk-in refrigerator, so we change the menu based on what is in season. We buy from a lot of local farmers, and I go shopping twice a week to different produce places, places like Talin market. While I’m out I just kind of see what’s good and in season and we base the menu on that. Certain popular items we keep on the menu all the time.

IQ: Did you always have a desire to cook?

SE: Yeah. I’ve never had another kind of job. I started working in a restaurant when I was 16-years-old. It was Lakeside Grille in Oakridge, Tennessee and I was a busboy. I was also a dishwasher and valet parker. I have always liked the lifestyle of working in restaurants, and the people who work in restaurants. Our sous chef calls the cooks pirates—and those are just my kind of people. 

IQ: You knew then that you had a cooking talent as well.

SE: I think so. I didn’t start cooking (professionally) until I got to college, but I always cooked at home a lot. I started working at Olive Garden (laughs) when I was 18-years-old and one of the youngest cooks. But I moved up really quickly. Cooking at Olive Garden was hard because it’s a lot of volume, so being 18-years-old in that environment wasn’t easy.

IQ: Who were your early influences in cooking?

SE: Emeril (Lagasse) was a big one. He made cooking fun and kind of made it glamorous. I watched a lot of Food Network. But my biggest influence was my mom. She cooked every day. I have five brothers and sisters, and she made breakfast, lunch and dinner everyday for us. We always had southern-style food.

IQ: What brought you to New Mexico from Florida?

SE: My wife. She went to medical school in Miami and we came out here so she could do her residency. 

IQ: Where did you start working when you moved here?

SE: I was the chef at Portobello and Bien Shur at Sandia Casino. I also worked at Kanome. We started working on Ambrozia around that time.  We’ll celebrate four years of being open on Christmas Eve. 

IQ: What is the biggest misconception about the profession of chef?

SE: People don’t know the amount of hours that you put in. It’s an insane amount of hours. Since I own the restaurant too, I do all the office work, and a lot of the wine buying, and I work on the wine list.

IQ: What do you say to people that are thinking about becoming a chef?

SE: I think it’s important to go to culinary school, but before that they should work at several different restaurants and make sure they really like it. It isn’t a big glamorous job. It also takes a long time to become a chef. You have to be a cook for eight to ten years before you become a chef. I think a lot of people go to culinary school and think they’re gonna get out and be a chef.  But you get out and work for $7 dollars an hour and are scrubbing the floors. You’re not a chef until you actually run the restaurant.

IQ: What kind of characteristics do you look for in a potential cook or sous chef?

SE: Strong organizational skills number one. I think that’s the most important thing, because really a large part of the job is ordering and inventory. There is a lot of paperwork. Of course you have to know how to cook; you want to be the best cook in the kitchen. I also like people that are open-minded about things.

IQ: What’s the hardest part of running your kitchen?

SE: We have a really small kitchen—that’s the hardest part. A lot of our food is complicated, and working in such a small environment is hard. I came from Bien Shur where the kitchen was as big as this entire restaurant. 

IQ: What’s your opinion of the current culinary scene in Albuquerque?

SE: I think it has definitely grown a lot and I’m excited about it. We don’t really look at other restaurants as competition—there are plenty of customers for everybody. So, I’m psyched when other restaurants open, because I like to go and eat out. Since I’ve moved here, there has been such a change in the culinary scene. There are a whole lot of new restaurants that are cool and are trying to do new things. 

IQ: Any chefs in town that you have a fondness for?

SE: The guys at Relish. I worked with (Relish partner) Tony Nethery for awhile. What Jennifer James does is always creative and fun. I love going to Prairie Star, I think (chef) Heath (VanRiper) always tries to push it, and he’s really creative.

IQ: Why has Ambrozia been a good fit for you?

SE: I think it’s because we did everything ourselves.  We built the floors, we built the patio, and we painted everything.  Everything was hands-on. 

IQ: What makes Ambrozia a successful restaurant?

SE: I think it’s probably teamwork.  Everyone that works here really cares about the restaurant; they’re not just here for the money.  We’ve all been together for a long time and these are the only friends I have pretty much.  (chuckles)  We all get along well and everyone puts a lot into it.  This is how you want a restaurant to be.  It’s small and we can do whatever we want.

IQ: What do customers appreciate the most?

SE: Probably the love that we have for the restaurant—it shows in the food and in the wine bar.  We’re trying to do things right.  We’re trying to make the customers happy.

IQ: What do you do on your day off?

SE: I take care of my 2-year-old daughter.  We go to the park or the zoo--maybe the Explora museum.  We go out to eat, she likes to eat a lot. (chuckles) 

IQ: Where do you eat when you’re not at Ambrozia?

SE: Prairie Star, La Crepe Michelle here in Old Town, Relish.

IQ: Are you a sports fan?

SE: Oh yeah, huge. College football is my big one. I’m a die hard Tennessee fan. We (the football team) went 9 and 3 this season so we did alright. We’re going to the Hall of Fame Bowl. I go to a game every year (in Knoxville) my parents still live there. I went and saw Tennessee versus Florida this year; it was awesome except we lost (laughs). We got a new men’s basketball coach this year and he’s good. A lot of us go to the Isotopes games during the season. My NFL team is Indianapolis, partly because of (quarterback) Peyton Manning who went to my Alma Mater.

IQ: What is your Superbowl prediction?

SE: Indianapolis

IQ: Do you have anyone that cooks for you?

SE: My wife can only make one thing: lasagna.  It’s good; I love it when she makes it. We have barbecues and that kind of thing.

IQ: What kind of music do you listen to?

SE: Pretty much punk rock. Agent Orange, Pennywise. 

IQ: Favorite local band?

SE: Black Maria

IQ: Hangouts?

SE: I go to shows at Launchpad. We had a great time at the Agent Orange concert at Golden West recently. Everyone from the restaurant went. I hang out at Gecko’s and Anodyne when I can.

 

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